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one of the pastors who signed letter is terminated

“The letter describes a “lack of transparency” and creating a “culture of fear.” It also accuses Mark Driscoll of misrepresenting the condition of the church and his leadership.

One of the pastors who signed the letter, Pastor Mark Dunford, was terminated on August 27, five days after the letter was submitted, sources tell KING 5. Dunford was an unpaid lay pastor at Mars Hill Portland.

Sources tell KING 5 the reason for his termination was “rebellion against the church.”

The other pastors who signed the letter were called into a meeting Thursday with Mars Hill leadership.”

“Spiritual abuse occurs when someone in a position of spiritual authority—the purpose of which is to ‘come underneath’ and serve, build, equip and make God’s people MORE free—misuses that authority placing themselves over God’s people to control, coerce or manipulate them for seemingly Godly purposes which are really their own.”

This explains well the reason why spiritual abuse “works” so well by being disguised under the radar. Thus, spiritual abuse can be very subtle, can be justified by the Bible, it’s purpose is expressed as being for God, and the leader can often be very friendly, gentle and charismatic at times. Under such circumstances the spiritual abuser imposes over time their own wish dream on their flock or congregation.

As a ubf shepherd I always had this feeling that I was using sheep to fill my quota and remove the threat of rebuke from other leaders. Now I realize such things are called out as a form of idolatry in Scripture.

You raise some excellent points Chris, namely, that we don’t view ubf as the worst organization. Surely there are far worse. That reminds me of the 2nd most common thing said to me during our exit: “We are the worst of sinners!” (the most common was of course “Go away and be quite!”.

The ubf mind (me included in the past) views themselves in light of Paul’s words “I am the worst of sinners… least of the apostles… one abnormally born…” In Paul’s case, I would say he deserves such a title, given his serial killings of believers. But in all ubf people’s cases, they are really not the worst.

So if Paul, who was the worst, could come into the light, it is surely possible for ubf people, who are not the worst.

The point is that UBFers claim to be born again and have radically changed their life style – as expressed in the typical 2-part life testimonies: “Part 1: Life in darkness before UBF, Part 2: Life as a shepherd in UBF.” This is even true, but the dichtomy is not “darkness – light” as it should be, but “darkness – work for UBF in obedient self-denial”. Doing all these works in obedience, they continue to live in darkness in their fantasy world bubble and refuse to do reality checks. I remember how one missionary even tried to justify obvious lies by the director, saying that Rahab also lied in the Bible. Ultimately, I think that this was the reason why I left UBF. I did not leave my life of darkness to live in an organization that continues to live in darkness and does not want to come out into the light as requested by the reform movement at the time when I left.

You also wrote “how similar the Driscoll/Mars Hill situation is compared to our faith community at UBF.” This is another observation that I made after leaving. This whole issue is not an issue of UBF alone. It’s a general phenomenon that can be seen in many high-pressure groups and cults, whether they are Christian or not. This is something people need to understand. We do not demonize UBF or Samuel Lee as the worst group or leader that ever existed, as sometimes is claimed. We know that there are many similar groups and leaders, and many are far worse. But they all have something in common. Therefore it helped me so much to read the stories of cult dropouts, even when the ideologies of these cults did not resemble UBF and were far more aberrant or not even Christian. But the psychological mechanisms how these groups worked and the damage they did to their followers were all extremely similar.

Therefore I really urge UBF members to read such stories, even if you think “UBF is ‘studying the Bible’, so how can you compare it to, say, the ‘Moonies’?” Or “UBF is so different from Mark Driscoll’s movement, how can you compare these things?” Truth is, you can. The similarities are striking. Maybe not so much for people in some of today’s more free and liberal UBF chapters, but definitely 15 years ago in all UBF chapters around the world. And assumed that things are completely different in UBF today, coming into the light would still mean that UBF needs to admit and process its sins and wrongdoings of the past, rehabilitate the reformers of the past, and apologize to all victimes of abuse. As long as UBF refuses to do that, it is still not living in the light, no matter how much it has allegedly changed.

But again, it’s not a problem of UBF alone. UBF is only a particular manifestiation of the phenomenon known as spiritual abuse that can be seen in many other Christian groups and movements following the shepherding/discipling paradigm and other doctrines and practices which superficially look Biblical, but maybe therefore are even more dangerous than groups that are obviously far aberrant from the Bible. A slight deviation from the gospel can sometimes be more harmful that complete ignorance.

UBF members need to get educated about spiritual abuse, shepherding/discipling and mind control to see that it’s always the same theme pervading so many groups and movements, and obviously UBF is also deeply entangled with this.